The present invention relates to a device for notifying vehicles of the presence of an approaching emergency vehicle (i.e. police, fire or ambulance). This could prove to be quite beneficial in both clearing traffic for emergency vehicles to respond to true emergencies more quickly, while simultaneously reducing the number of accidents caused by emergency vehicles.
As the trend towards increasingly developed urban areas grows exponentially, the streets become more and more congested and crowded, with an ever increasing number of vehicles. Additionally, buildings increasing in size, height and proximity to the street make for an increasingly hazardous situation on the roads due to diminishing visibility. This leaves motorists with short notice on potential hazards, and fewer options regarding where to maneuver their vehicle to avoid such obstacles. For non-emergency vehicles this poses little more than an inconvenience, easily remedied by lowering their rate of speed, increasing travel time and keeping in tight control of their vehicle.
Emergency vehicles, however, are subject to a drastically different operating procedure. The impending urgency present in their travels creates a slight difficulty in ensuring both a safe and efficient response. It has become increasingly difficult to safely and quickly navigate through the increasingly full traffic patterns throughout the congested urban and suburban areas. The higher rate of speed at which these vehicles commonly travel normally arises from the need for immediate care or assistance, which poses an additional risk to themselves and those they are assisting.
Common methods of warning motorists of an approaching emergency vehicle are visual and audible warning devices. These include sirens, flashing lights in a variety of bright patterns. Naturally, most states have laws requiring motorists to pull over, allowing emergency vehicles t he right of way, while reducing the chance of a collision. These lights and siren warning systems have served somewhat sufficient limitations imposed by increasingly crowded streets and crowded building structures have diminished the effect of these systems. Often by the time that a driver realizes that an emergency vehicle is nearing there is neither time nor space for the driver to maneuver out of the way of the approaching emergency vehicle.
This forces drivers of these vehicles to slow down, thus increasing their response time, which at times may be a matter of life or death for an accident or emergency victim, desperately in need of professional assistance. Additionally the risk of a high speed collision is imminent in many cases, where high speed collisions should be something emergency vehicles are responding to rather than being involved it. Known within the art are systems which provide alerts to oncoming emergency vehicles, however none provide the ability to change the radio energy pattern of the transmitted signal relative to the speed of the emergency vehicle.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,060, issued to Prevulsky, a device which uses a similar system using both a transmitter and receiver system, allowing all vehicles to be given sufficient warning of the approaching vehicle and its type. This is generally another useful piece of information as drivers would need to ensure pulling entirely off the road in clearing a path for a fire department vehicle or large ambulance, however the path for a police vehicle would not necessarily need to be so large.
Alternate disclosures include U.S. Pat. No. 6,529,831, issued to Smith, which teaches the use of a system including a navigation system placed within each vehicle interfaced with a transceiver-receiver system. This system, while useful in a multitude of purposes beyond the intent of warning drivers of imminent emergency vehicles, may prove to be too expensive and bulky to integrate into all vehicles. Thus working against the purpose of such a system, the effectiveness of such a system would hinge on the ability to inexpensively and sleekly incorporate a transmitter into all vehicles on the road. Additionally navigational systems are often susceptible to other problems such as decreased reception in metropolitan areas where tall buildings and other man-made obstacles can shadow reception.
Beinke, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,351, teaches a system which not only notifies vehicles of impending emergency vehicles, but also has the ability to change traffic lights in a further effort to clear the roadways for emergency traffic. This may prove to be dangerous, as the connection to the traffic light may open a backdoor for hackers to gain access to such a system, which could cause accidents. Again this may prove to add an additional cost in producing the system, which will hinder the quick implementation into all vehicles. An alternate device, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,475, issued to Klosinski, transmits across a broadband of AM and FM frequencies to warn vehicles through existing radio devices. While this is advantageous due to the lack of necessity to add additional parts to vehicles it is impossible to assume the AM or FM transmission will reach all vehicles, for example those who do not listen to the radio, and prefer a compact disc player or no background noise in their automobile.
The current subject of invention uses a microcontroller paired with a non-volatile memory which makes the design compact and lightweight, thus making it easy to implement such a system into many vehicles quite quickly. Additionally the ability to change the radio energy pattern of the transmitted signal relative to the speed of the emergency vehicle minimizes the unnecessary notification of vehicles who are not within the path of the oncoming emergency vehicle.